The present invention relates to a telephone having a receive call indicating function and a mute/light key and, more particularly, to a hand-held portable (HHP) telephone having such a function and a key.
The HHP telephone of the prior art typically has a keyboard for inputting call signals, and so forth, and a liquid crystal display (LCD) for indicating the telephone number dialled, and so on. For convenient use at night, the HHP telephone further includes a back-light for illuminating the LCD. When called, the HHP telephone alerts the user to the arrival of the call (or receive "call") by turning on and off a message signal such as "CALL", on the LCD, illuminated by the back-light, while outputting a ringing signal.
With the conventional HHP telephone referred to above, however, when the ringing signal is less audible as in a car, for example the intermittent lighting of the message "CALL" may have too little impact to alert the user. Therefore, the user might then fail to notice the arrival of the call. It may be even more difficult to alert the user at night.
Furthermore, when the user makes a call at night, he or she is required to turn on the back-light for inputting control signals from the keyboard. For this purpose, the HHP telephone comprises a switch for turning on and off the back-light, which switch has to be mounted on the face of the HHP telephone. The available space on the HHP telephone casing, however, is limited because the HHP telephone has a built-in keyboard, needs a part by which the user can hold it, and has to be compact in size.